Pertinent Observations

I just finished setting my last question for the Grand IIMB Open Quiz, to be held as part of Unmaad 2006. It’s been a month of hard work googling, wiki-ing, digging out fundaes I had made a mental note of ages ago, noting fundaes for probable questions in a grubby little notebook, scouring papers and mags. Finally it’s done. I have my quota ready. Just need to stick my ass to the chair for a couple of hours now and put the whole thing down on a PPT. Feels so good.

The open quiz is on 4th (Saturday). Prelims are at 11:30 am and the finals at 3 pm. The whole thing will be held at the Management Development Center. Prizes of 15K, 12K, 9K for the top three teams. Lots of audience prizes also.

Aadisht, Kodhi and I have tried our best to give you guys a good quiz. Research started a couple of months ago. We have tried our best to make sure that all questions are approximately of the same level. We have tried not to put “peters” or “chimps”. We sincerely hope that everyone who comes there enjoys the quiz, irrespective of their performance.

As for other events at unmaad, has put a whole post on it (which looks like the official invite). Please refer to that.

“Basically the funda is there were two guys called X and Y. Now, X did this and Y did that and then something happened. And basically, macha, X got hajaar pained ok. And he did something. And then something happened and that led to something and then that something led to something else which led to something else and finally Y decided to do something about it and did this… blah blah… (goes on for another 10 minutes)… Hey, open question 24 da. Show the first two visuals. These are visuals of X and Y doing something. Basically put fundaes da.”

Eight young men look up and only see stars. Some of them even happen to see the moon, bright side of it, and get some inspiration. And take their shot at putting fundaes. “See da, basically the funda is, when X was putsing with Z, Z was putitsing with W and … “. Another 10 minutes for each of them to take their guesses. Those who have seen only stars pass. At the end of the ordeal, another “clue” is given and the question put on the buzzer. One guy buzzes and loses a point. There is a stunned silence for the next couple of minutes. More clues are given. The question is put on bounce again. Another five minutes before the answer is given out.

Few people have understood the question. Fewer have understood the answer. However, that doesn’t matter. The sparse crowd (of a hundred or so) bursts into spontaneous applause and cries of “hifunda da” rent the air. The show goes on. Oops, did i say “show”? i’m sorry, this is not a quiz show, this is a quiz!

There are a few basic rules regarding the IIT Madras Saarang LoneWolf Quiz. The finals should not start before midnight. The last few questions of the finals cannot be visuals, for, by then the OAT would be bathed in sunlight. And each question should be at least five minutes long. Accompanied by a couple of visuals. And maybe an audio which typically takes a long time to play.

The questions, well, they are about the most esoteric stuff. Most of them are on European history. Some on hollywood movies (probably the best of the lot) and maybe a few on Manga comics. You know, the Saarang Lone Wolf Champion is divine and should prove himself at stuff that are totally beyond us ordinary mortals. God only really knows where they get these questions from!

Then did I not tell you about the language used in the questions? Most questions are in IITian English, which has been created by us divine IITians which we think are out of bounds for lesser mortals. So if an outsider has to win this quiz, he better learn our hallowed language. Some keywords are “put fundaes”, “puts”, “macha”, “slysha”, ok i’m not going to give away more of our rich heritage.

Then of course IITM quizzes are not supposed to be put on Powerpoint slides. “It’ll make it too organized da”, they say. The prelims question paper (prelims are never put on powerpoint) has to be at least six pages long. Apart from the dozen or so visual questions that is. Some of us do try and break the shackles, and are given long lectures as to how we are playing with tradition.

And for the record, I have the record for writing the prelims of the lone wolf maximum number of times and not qualifying even once! And this is NOT a phenomenon of sour grapes.

The quiz goes on…

love can be explained through the AIDA framework. (i first read about this framework in Kotler (marketing management) and figured out a few months ago it can be applied to love also)

AIDA, as explained by Kotler, stands for “Awareness Interest Desire Action”

Awareness – I come to know about your existence

Interest – I find you interesting and believe that we might just hit off together. So I get down to investigating as to whether I really like you and whether we’ll be compatible and stuff.

Desire – Following due diligence, i’m convinced that we cna hit it off together. So i’m fida over you. Now it’s upto me to find out what you think about me. SEnd feelers. Try to somehow figure out what you’re thinking about me.

Action – I propose to you

As I had explained earlier, I recently found the back issues of The Fourth Estate, the erstwhile IITM journal. The last two of them had stuff written by me. Both written about “contemporary” events (events which were contemporary at the time of writing). Both really badly written. And both utterly scandalous.

At first I couldn’t believe that I could’ve written so badly. However, a little analysis revealed that these were my first couple of attempts at writing. Before 2003, I had probably written not more than a page outside of my exam answer scripts. Then, she suggested that writing might help me “cool down”. My first piece came in the April 03 issue of the Fourth Estate. A wholly one-sided view of institute elections. The second was in the January 04 issue. About some robotics thing. I couldn’t go beyond the first couple of lines of my article so I don’t know what it’s all about.

All said and done, a portion of my resume reads “Regular contributor to IITM publications such as The Fourth Estate and Total Perspective Vortex“.

just back from a party. was a rockin’ one. and i got drunk. however, i don’t think i did anything “interesting”. just pranced around, put a little senti on people and stuff. thatz all. and i’d prewarned neha that i’m getting drunk. only “interesting” thing that i did was that i started making out with a pillar a couple of times!

feel sober now. just half an hour back i had a whole 500ml bottle of frooti. and just drank lots of water. hope i dont’ wake up with a hangover.

Of late, my processor speed seems to have increased big time. However, lack of sufficient memory means that all this extra speed is going waste.

In fact, insufficient memory is causing data overload in the existing memory and has led to heavy loss of data. Classic case of improvement in one component of the system DESTROYING the whole system rather than improving it!

Wanted: An external memory; In other words, i need a sounding board for my ideas. Would help if i could get a girlfriend who’s really nice to talk to.

For the last 23 odd years I’ve lived a fairly good life. So good that I’ve managed to carry on pretty well despite making a thousand mistakes. And every time I sit down and think of the past, I remember yet another mistake I made somewhere, sometime. And I feel so silly. In fact, most of the mistakes I’ve made have been of a really silly nature. If I travel back the appropriate ‘distance’, I could so easily correct it! And of late I’ve made it a point to slap myself once everytime I discover some ancient mistake. Hopefully that way I can get rid of some flab from my face!

Whoever said a good life is one where one has no regrets!